{"id":174328,"date":"2026-09-17T13:17:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T17:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=174328"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:09:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T20:09:35","slug":"bates-student-honored-as-newman-civic-fellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2026\/09\/17\/bates-student-honored-as-newman-civic-fellow\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates student honored as Newman Civic Fellow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Student
Natalie Gersen \u201928 of Belmont, Mass., has been named a Newman Civic Fellow. (Theophil Syslo\/ Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Natalie Gersen \u201828 of Belmont, Mass., has been named a Newman Civic Fellow through Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities working to advance the public purposes of higher education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Newman Civic Fellowship is a yearlong program recognizing students with exceptional leadership potential and commitment to creating positive change in communities. Named for the late Frank Newman, an advocate for civic engagement in higher education, the fellowship provides students with learning and networking opportunities that nurture their development as civic leaders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gersen caught the attention of Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships and Donald W. and Ann M. Harward Professor of Civic Engagement, soon after she arrived at Bates. Gersen, a Community Outreach Fellow with the Harward Center, has been \u201ca major force for deeply community-connected work since she arrived at Bates,\u201d said Ray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNatalie is the kind of civic leader whose actions speak louder than words \u2014 which is to say, a deeply authentic and effective leader,\u201d said Ray. \u201cThe community partners she has collaborated with praise her entrepreneurial spirit and highly developed organizational skills, and of course her enormous heart.\u201d Ray noted that Gersen has applied her \u201cimpressive intelligence and skills to diverse projects and issues, always with care and impeccable follow-through.\u201d Gersen spent her sophomore year building out what Ray called \u201ca highly successful set\u201d of volunteer opportunities, which focused on housing and homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campus Compact provides the Newman Civic Fellows programming that emphasizes personal, professional, and civic growth intended to empower students to collaborate effectively across disciplines to work toward large-scale positive change. The Newman Civic Fellows gather annually for three days of intensive in-person skill-building and networking. The fellowship also provides mini grants to help fund community projects, scholarships, and postgraduate opportunities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gersen\u2019s work with the Student Resource Center, which supports students and families experiencing housing instability in Lewiston, as well as her volunteerism with Southern Maine Women’s Reentry Center, were key elements of her nomination for the fellowship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am deeply honored to be a recipient of the Newman Civic Fellowship,\u201d said Gersen, who noted that the Harward Center offered \u201cthe frameworks and the opportunities to turn an abstract interest in civic life into real, sustained practice.\u201d Gersen\u2019s work alongside the Lewiston\/Auburn community helped her see that  \u201cmeaningful public service is seldom defined by a single act of significance; it is cultivated through consistent, incremental effort \u2014 effort that is too often unacknowledged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This consistency was noted in President Garry W. Jenkins\u2019 nominating letter. Gersen, he wrote, has \u201cdeveloped close relationships with community partners, developed volunteer opportunities with them for her fellow Batesies, and recruited, trained, and organized those volunteers for a sustained impact over the course of the year.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Now more than ever, it is an honor to recognize student leaders who are applying themselves as changemakers and creating positive impact in their communities,\u201d Campus Compact President Bobbie Laur said in a press release announcing the winners. \u201cThis is just the start of their lifelong journeys as Newman Civic Fellows, and I couldn\u2019t be more excited to watch them continue to grow and pursue their passions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last spring, Gersen enrolled in a Short Term course with Whitehouse Professor of Psychology Amy Bradfield Douglass called \u201cCommunicating Psychological Science to Incarcerated Students,\u201d which involved visiting the Southern Maine Women’s Reentry Center, a minimum security prison. Gersen was \u201cdeeply inspired\u201d by the time spent at the Reentry Center, and came away with an idea that would extend their connection \u2014 a book club between Bates students and the center, which kicks off this month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bates\u2019 most recent Newman Civic Fellow was Aaliyah Moore \u201924<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natalie Gersen \u201828 of Belmont, Mass., has been named a Newman Civic Fellow through Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities working to advance the public purposes of higher education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1917,"featured_media":174352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"","_estimated-read-time":"","_post-template":"","_header-color":"","_photo-credit":"","_header-effect":"","override_related_with_tag":"","_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4087],"class_list":["post-174328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews","tag-harward-center-for-community-partnerships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1917"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174328"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174361,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174328\/revisions\/174361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}